Chaos and Confusion as Binance goes down and suspends withdrawals

Various news sites, including the Financial Times, reported that cryptocurrency exchange, Binance are down and has suspended withdrawals.

According to the Merkle, Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges which is said to be the fastest growing startup in history, has been offline for several hours.

Quoting the company

“Due to a significant increase in users and trading activity, Binance will need to extend the System upgrade and is expected to be completed by 2PM (UTC),” the Binance team stated, noting that trading will remain disabled during this period. “Withdrawals and trading during this period will remain suspended. We apologize for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience.”

Including the several hours Binance had been offline prior to the official announcement of the Binance team, the trading platform would have been offline for more than 14 hours.

An initial announcement of the Binance team led to some confusion among traders and investors as it said maintenance is ongoing and that customers may experience a temporary decrease in exchange performance.